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US leaving UN Human Rights Council -- 'a cesspool of political bias'
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the United States is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council Tuesday, accusing the body of bias against US ally Israel and a failure to hold human rights abusers accountable. The move, which the Trump administration has threatened for months, came down one day after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border as "unconscionable."
Speaking from the State Department, where she was joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Haley defended the move to withdraw from the council, saying US calls for reform were not heeded. "Human rights abusers continue to serve on, and be elected to, the council," said Haley, listing US grievances with the body. "The world's most inhumane regimes continue to escape its scrutiny, and the council continues politicizing scapegoating of countries with positive human rights records in an attempt to distract from the abusers in its ranks."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Thursday June 21 2018, @12:04AM (18 children)
Their parents commited a crime and were imprisoned for it. I'm really sorry for those kids, but you don't get a free pass for commiting crimes just because you have children. Blame their irresponsible parents, not the system of law.
If you don't like the law, work to change it instead of trying to suppress enforcement through emotionally blackmailing your fellow citizens.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @01:27AM (3 children)
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oh, ok, so next time you are accused (not yet convicted in court) of a crime, or even convicted, you won't mind if we can take YOUR 7YO and put her in a cement floor cage in a concentration camp on Texas border, behind armed guards, with no access to relatives, and with zero accountability to the people, which includes both the press and the sitting congress-critters? are you actually saying that it's ok for the state to torture and abuse children whenever their parents are accused of the crime? hahahahahaha.... <tear wipe /> oh my, by your logic, it's ok... nay, JUST for you to torture a small child as long as you can make an argument, however flimsy, that it's someone else's fault the child was brought to you against the law? i am glad we are getting it all out in the open, keep talking. usa could easily afford to give every single one of these children a hotel room and a personal shrink while they are waiting. the reason nothing of the kind is being done is that donnie and his little fascist cockblowers find it not cruel enough. they have a better use for public money in mind: just transfer it all to golden suxx and cock brothers. they are already rich, so they clearly deserved it, in the eyes of man and god alike. ~ pseudonymous 0x9932FE2729B1D963
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(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday June 21 2018, @02:21AM (2 children)
Hello there Mrs Newman [youtube.com].
I didn't say that any method of enforcing the law is justified. I didn't even say that any law is justified.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @02:59AM (1 child)
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"I didn't say that any method of enforcing the law is justified." -- that's right, you didn't. you said -- "Their parents committed a crime and were imprisoned for it. I'm really sorry for those kids, but you don't get a free pass for committing crimes just because you have children. Blame their irresponsible parents, not the system of law." -- in that sentence, "their" refers to the specific asylum seekers and other people swept up on the border by donnie's ice nazis, and therefore "those kids" must be in reference to little children in a cement floor cage in a concentration camp on Texas border, behind armed guards, with no access to relatives, and with zero accountability to the people, which includes both the press and the sitting congress-critters. and then you said -- "Blame their irresponsible parents" -- blame for what? for the kids being tortured as we type? do you not believe these kids are being tortured? even though you can see these children held in conditions amounting to torture in the photos released by the torturers themselves? i never claimed you thought ANY method of enforcing the law is justified, i merely understood what you were saying as the claim that torturing these specific 7yo children was justified because their parents currently stand accused of breaking the law. ...or are you trying to retract some part your original statement?
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(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 21 2018, @04:47AM
Where were the parents when caught? Did they have a stamped passport from a visa waiver country or a visa if they didn't come from one of those? If "no" it's a pretty open and shut case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @01:42AM (3 children)
Parent comment presents the belief that the criminal is responsible for all of the repercussions of enforcement actions by the state.
This is a profoundly authoritarian idea.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 21 2018, @02:29AM (2 children)
Alright. So, Jimmy Dimbulb has a wife and kids. Jimmy can't hold a job, for whatever reason. His kids are hungry. He comes to YOUR HOUSE, and ransacks it for valuables. You arrive home while he is there, and Jimmy attacks you, demanding more money. You defend yourself, and Jimmy ends up dead. Since you were upholding the law by defending your own life - ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR JIMMY'S KID'S FUTURE WELLBEING??????
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @03:44AM
Triggered!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:43PM
Awkward as fuck analogy for what I don't know. I'm guessing it's that whole child-as-a-shield hypothetical that people keep trotting out.
However, to answer your question directly, YES. You, as part of society, are now responsible for the children. To say otherwise, is to literally put it in God's hands. Good Samaritans will step up, the religious in society will absolve you, or they just meek out a living as street urchins stealing from your pockets.
The children are future citizens (you did not say Jimmy was an illegal), and it makes good sense to invest in their future. That's biologically speaking quite imperative in the early years of life, otherwise the children end up mentally deficient. You would want to put them in an orphanage, or some facility like it.
If you think about it, you'll see the answer is yes too. You're not a monster.
As for the topic at hand, it's a cruelty to separate the children. They've stopped doing that are now incarcerating the children with the parents. Which is much, much, much, better. What you do is simple. Contact their government and verify, to the extent you can, the relationship with the child. If they're a criminal using the child as a shield, then we incarcerate their ass for 10 years because they trafficked a child across borders. We return the child to the government they came from, by plane or whatever. Expedite it.
If it really is a parent and child that are here for asylum, then process them like it. So what if they crossed illegally. It's the same outcome, that makes sense in all situations. Keep the family together, evaluate the asylum, and either grant them citizenship or send them back. Put yourself in their shoes. I'm not particularly inclined to punish them because they didn't make it to an official processing center with staff. BP picks them up and gives them a ride. Big deal. Not going to hold it against a woman and child. I don't know why the asylum decision can take a few years (sounds ridiculous to me), but they have wildly successful programs with private prisons keeping track of these families. It's like parole and they check in regularly. That is much better than the alternative, and they're at least paying sales taxes and possibly contributing to the economy positively. There are examples of such families making small businesses that thrive while they await a decision. It's not all criminals and people that have no hope of integrating.
My biggest issue is what we are doing to the children. It doesn't matter how, or why, the child got to us. All that matters is that they did, and as a people, I think we would want to be kind and nurturing to all children. Especially our own right? If it really is the mother, than it is a family.
I'm not advocating open borders either, just that we process the children with the family. Even if that means internment camps, or being housed on a military base. The latter being a really good idea. The children can play out in the sun safely, they're obviously well protected and provided for. Sounds like good hospitality to me while we decide if they can stay, or we send them back.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday June 21 2018, @02:12AM (8 children)
The problem with your logic is that it punishes the wrong people: the kids. This is no different from the conservative plans to cut food stamps and welfare and Medicaid because families that can't afford to have children shouldn't have children. Again, you're punishing the wrong people. And if anything, those undernourished, neglected kids are more likely to grow up with problems in education, employment, and criminal activity. So "saving money" actually costs us all money. But that's irrelevant, the real problem is that punishing children for the sins of the parent is something an asshole like the Old Testament God would do.
So I don't give a fuck what the parents were thinking when they brought their kids to the US. It's utterly irrelevant to this discussion. What ICE/BP are doing is wrong, period, end of story, I don't care if Nazis (Hello Godwin) were bringing their own children into the country. Argument over.
But further, how shitty must parts of Central and South America be if people think it's better to be criminals in the US than citizens at home? My ancestors left Poland and Ireland because, at the time, they were hellholes and while it technically was legal to enter the US at the time it wouldn't have mattered. "Starve to death at home or enter the US illegally... hmm.... decisions, decisions..." We're the richest country in the history of humanity with 585 billionaires and we can't fucking afford a few million immigrants? Fuck ICE, Fuck BP, and Fuck EVERYBODY that supports them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Thursday June 21 2018, @03:09AM (5 children)
I'm not in favor of the exact way the US border authorities are handling this situation, but I am in favor of enforcing the law.
Yes, that means separating children from their parents, and yes, it sucks that it comes to it, but there is no better way to handle this. The only other possible solutions is imprisoning innocent children which is obviously unjust or absolving their parents, which produces lawlessness that is ultimately worse for everyone, including those very children.
I'm from a really shitty Eastern European country called Bulgaria, and I fully understand the desire to move to a better place, but I don't see how that makes it okay for me to invade your country through illegal means. Campaign to change immigration laws you disagree with the current situation, that is how democracies should work. Even better, campaign to form development partnership programs with underdeveloped countries if you actually care enough to resolve the underlying problems and improve the lot of people in those countries. Unregulated immigration is not the answer, it just creates more problems than it solves. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @08:01AM (2 children)
So, your defense is that you are merely a useful idiot? You disagree with how the law is enforced, but you still think that it should be enforced?
Uhm, yes there is. How about not putting them in fucking concentration camps? How about putting up daycare facilities, nurseries or even schools?
It doesn't. There's another reason for that: the US system requires one to enter the country illegally before applying for asylum. From USCIS [uscis.gov] itself (emphasis mine):
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @09:37AM
Entering the country illegally will get you arrested, don't like it -- get a fucking visa!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 22 2018, @12:34PM
US embassies and military bases would also count. And note the next line after the one you quoted:
Law that encourages law breaking is exciting stuff.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday June 21 2018, @02:03PM (1 child)
Again, if "enforcing the law" means taking a three year old from his or her parents, the law is fucking wrong and the only right thing to do is refuse. It's been said a million times before, but it's worth repeating: "I was only following orders" and "I was only obeying the law" were the same defenses used by members of the Gestapo when they were on trial for crimes against humanity after World War 2.
I'm not saying it's okay for people in Honduras, El Salvador, and so forth to come into the US illegally. You skipped right over what I said: it doesn't fucking matter what the parents did, you cannot harm the kids because their parents broke the law.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 22 2018, @12:21PM
There isn't a place in the world that would let a murderer or embezzler go because it would "harm the kids". So yes, it does matter what the parents did.
What's missing here is that the immigration laws in question are being enforced here in a particularly inhumane way. One doesn't need to separate kids from parents for long periods in order to enforce immigration law. It's just a bit of propaganda theater for would-be voters to show that Trump (and/or the ICE) cares about enforcing the law.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 21 2018, @04:54AM (1 child)
Let's all be honest for a second -- and I say this as a person who thinks Trump is a moron and a dick and who did not vote for him -- but there is NOTHING he can do without a torrent of criticism coming down on him. If he holds the kids while their parents are going through deportation hearings, everyone flips out. If he put them on a plane and sent them to their home country while their parents are going through deportation hearings, everyone would flip out. If he did what HRC did with illegal immigrant children (deport them: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-child-migrants_us_55d4a5c5e4b055a6dab24c2f [huffingtonpost.com] ), the press would flip out. If Obama had held meetings with Un, the press would have called him Jesus Christ.
Honestly, just admit that isn't about any single policy or group of policies Trump endorses (because Democrats endorse the same shit), this whole "crisis" exists just because you don't like him personally. Which I get. But quit being deceitful little punks about it.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday June 21 2018, @12:17PM
Did you read the link you sent? Hillary said we should deport them, she didn't actually deport any. And I'm not holding up her or Obama as heroes. The only way either of them look remotely adequate is in comparison to Donald Trump. They supported torture, unlawful surveillance, drone attacks on Americans, and the big banks in the financial crisis. They supported the War on Drugs. They stand with Disney-loving lawmakers and all of the absurd intellectual property laws that make sharing a song or a film online a bigger crime than shoplifting the best laptop from a Best Buy. I hate them.
But they still look like heroes next to Trump. "Go after the terrorists' families." I would support that if it did something other than serve to recruit more terrorists, but it wouldn't. Unless you plan to end humanity with World War 3, every televised six year old Arab that was blown to bits probably means fifty more people sign up with ISIS or Al Queda. "I would do more than waterboarding." "90 day plan to defeat ISIS." How did that work out for you? "Replace Obamacare with something much better." I'm still waiting. The Republicans have had eight years now to make something better than Obamacare, and it's clear they have no idea and no interest in any health care program other than "fuck everybody that isn't rich". "Obama spends too much time golfing, when I'm President I will be too busy getting things done to golf." And then he takes more vacations than Obama did. "Bring back coal power" when the biggest reason coal power in the US is dying is that American natural gas power is replacing it. The US economy has been growing since 2009, but even though the number of jobs keep increasing almost 100% of the increase in inflation-adjusted income has gone to the wealthiest 1%. So what do the President and Republicans in Congress do? The people that rode into office screaming that the Democrats spend too much money started spending even more money, and gave tax cuts that go almost entirely to the 1%. At one point Trump said the federal minimum wage should be at least $10, I even know people that voted for him because of it. I want to ask them how that worked out for them. Not to mention all of the assaults on abortion rights and gay rights, cutting national parks and conservation programs, and so forth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21 2018, @07:01PM
This is where that D&D alignment system comes real handy. You see, any laws criminalizing en-mass to the degree of establishing children concentration camps can only be described as evil. You see, laws removed from circumstances and practice are deliberately discriminatory. When a poor man steals bread its only wrong if the society he lives in isn't rich enough to feed everyone. If it is, it's a failed society. Regardless of your "work ethics" and the likes. And if you still don't get it, read the bible or any work of philosophy that wasn't embraced by the Nazis.